


boy trouble

by witching



Series: you've been like a light [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Background Relationships, Banter, Coming Out, Cute, Drinking, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Light Angst, Literal Sleeping Together, Movie Night, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24420928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witching/pseuds/witching
Summary: "It’s Sasha’s opinion that no Friday evening can be anything but magical when it starts with your best friend bounding over to your desk five minutes before it’s time to clock out, taking your work out of your hand, and saying, 'You free tonight? Of course you are! We’re going on an adventure.'"
Relationships: Sasha James & Tim Stoker
Series: you've been like a light [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1668694
Comments: 26
Kudos: 182





	boy trouble

**Author's Note:**

> mild spoilers thru ep104 read at your own risk! i love you pls give me compliments

_boy problems, who's got em?  
_ _i've got em too  
_ _boy trouble, we've got double  
_ _don't know what to do_

_// carly rae jepsen, 'boy problems'_

* * *

It’s Sasha’s opinion that no Friday evening can be anything but magical when it starts with your best friend bounding over to your desk five minutes before it’s time to clock out, taking your work out of your hand, and saying, “You free tonight? Of course you are! We’re going on an adventure.” 

That opinion is challenged when she finds out that the _adventure_ in question is, in fact, a movie night at Tim’s flat. Still, she doesn’t have anything better to do and she hasn’t hung out with Tim in a while – not with just the two of them, at least, for understandable reasons, but regrettable ones. 

He’s extremely enthusiastic about this particular movie, which he recently found out Sasha has never seen, so he’s forcing her to watch it, and she’s humoring him because she loves him. As she settles into her half of Tim's couch – really, it may as well have her name on it by this point – she turns to look at Tim. He's fiddling with the remote, trying to get the movie started, and Sasha's pulling a bottle of whiskey from her bag, and something occurs to her that makes her stop and clear her throat.

When Tim looks up expectantly from his project, she asks, "This isn't a play, is it?"

Tim's brow furrows. "No, it's a feature film," he says blankly, in that infuriating way he does sometimes where it's impossible to tell if he's joking or not, "directed by my main squeeze, Guillermo Del Toro."

"Shut up, Tim, you know what I mean," Sasha says, hitting him lightly on the arm. "You're not going to _try_ anything?"

"The only thing I'm going to try is watching this movie with my dear friend." Tim presses play and grabs for the bottle, but Sasha pulls it out of his reach and raises her eyebrows warily at him.

"You promise? Even after you get drunk?"

"Yeah, Sash, damn. I'm a slut, not a pervert." Tim almost looks genuinely hurt by the assumption, but then he softens and reassures her, "You said it was done, so it’s done, I won’t mention it again.”

Sasha nods her head, satisfied with the answer. “Good. Thank you.”

Finally snatching the bottle from her hand, Tim takes a large swig before telling her, “Okay, now shut up, Charlie Hunnam is talking.”

Sasha wrinkles her nose at the television. “Him?”

Tim looks at her like she's crazy, like she's just asked him if the sky is blue. “He’s a hunk, babe," he insists, "look at that jumper.”

“You’ve got a thing for jumpers?” asks Sasha, teasing and warm.

Tim turns bright red from the tips of his ears down to his neck, shakes his head with a dismissive grunt. “No,” he mutters petulantly, “I didn’t say that.”

“Timothy Jumper Kink Stoker,” Sasha teases, poking him in the ribs.

Taking another long sip straight from the bottle of whiskey, Tim curls in on himself and leans away from Sasha. “S’not a _kink,”_ he grumbles under his breath. “Mm… preference, maybe. Appreciation. I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“Tetchy,” Sasha giggles.

“M’not tetchy," Tim retorts brilliantly, pouting his lips. "Shut up, Idris Elba is talking.”

Sasha takes the bottle from him, takes a drink for herself and holds onto it rather than giving it back. “Are you going to say that every time anyone is talking?”

“Yeah, probably," Tim shrugs. "Everyone’s important.”

“Sure, sure," Sasha placates him, rubbing his shoulder in a soothing gesture, almost a force of habit. She focuses her attention on the movie, which actually seems to be good so far, and shuts up for a while.

Forty minutes later, Tim is lying with his head in Sasha’s lap, babbling endlessly while Sasha alternates her attention between him and the movie. She has one hand wrapped tight around the neck of the bottle of whiskey, dangling over the arm of the couch to keep it out of Tim’s sight and out of his reach, and the other hand stroking his hair, brushing it out of the way every time it falls into his eyes. 

“It’s just, like, so fucking poignant,” Tim slurs, tears threatening to overflow from his eyes. “‘Magine it’s like, end of the world or whatever, an’ the only way you can save humanity is – you gotta find your perfect match, yeah, an’ then you gotta get in a fucking _robot_ with ‘em, an’ you gotta Vulcan _mind_ meld with ‘em to fight the _fucking_ kaiju. It’s like, poetic, innit?”

“It is, yeah,” Sasha sighs. She’s far from sober herself, but she’s always been able to hold her drink better than Tim. She knows from experience that he’s about half an hour away from crying or puking, or possibly both, if she’s lucky.

Tim shakes his head vigorously, his eyes closed to preempt the motion sickness that would undoubtedly accompany such a movement. “You don’t _get_ it," he whines, reaching up and taking Sasha’s hand, twining their fingers together and resting their joined hands on his chest. "D’you know how much trust you gotta put into that? Like, soulmates, or like… brothers, they can do it, but it's gotta be a real tight bond.”

Holding her breath, Sasha expects him to go down the path of talking about his brother. It's right there, and he's got that distant look in his eyes like he's swimming around in his own fog of memory, but then he blinks a few times and smiles at her, playful but sincere.

“Me an’ you could do it, I think. We’re like…” He pauses, trying to cross his fingers to make the universal sign for close friends, stymied by the fact that he’s still holding Sasha’s hand. It doesn’t occur to him to use his other hand, so he gives up. “We’re like, best friends,” he says instead, “an’ you already know all my secrets, an’ I know yours, yeah?”

Sasha hesitates, bites her lip. Tim is too drunk to notice the apprehension in her expression or the awkwardness of her response. “Er, yeah. Mhm.”

“We’d get right in there, like – yeah, fuck yeah, boom!" Tim accompanies his exclamations with little punches and kicks in the air. "Knock the godzillas straight outta town. Teamwork," he finishes with a sage nod of his head.

"Yeah," Sasha agrees, fond and amused, petting his hair gently.

The movie is a bit of a minefield, Sasha is finding, given Tim's past experiences. She can't tell from one scene to the next whether he's going to get all morose or start rambling about giant robots. He talks about Danny a few times, more freely than she's ever seen him do, the alcohol and the movie bringing it out of him to an unprecedented degree, and she can see why. 

As always, Sasha knows what to say to him, how to be supportive and caring and listen to his feelings. She was one of the first people that Tim ever told the truth about his brother, and she's seen him cry countless times, and she's always got exactly what he needs to snap him out of it or to help him wallow. It's just that right now, he's sort of all over the place, considering the abundance of whiskey and all.

All told, it's not too bad. A few times he seems to be on the precipice of spiraling, but Sasha just shushes him and strokes his hair and points out something that's happening on screen to distract him.

There's a part in the movie where one of the scientist guys drifts with one of the giant monster things, and Sasha is paying enough attention to know that's objectively hilarious and absolutely wild. “That seems like something you’d do,” she muses. “But if the kaiju was like, a really old building or something.”

“Hey,” Tim protests weakly, batting her arm but unable to come up with a rebuttal.

“You’re a Smirke groupie!" she gasps, grinning wide like a lightbulb has lit up over her head with the realization. 

“Now you sound like Jon,” says Tim, a hint of some unfathomable emotion in his tone. Sasha gives him a second, waits it out to see if he’ll volunteer more information without a nudge, and after a lengthy pause, he drapes an arm across his eyes and speaks in a wistful, dreamlike voice. “He’s a lot like Gottlieb, isn’t he?”

That was not quite what Sasha was expecting. “Who, Jon? Yeah, definitely," she agrees. "It’s uncanny.”

“It’s cute,” Tim sighs.

That was _absolutely_ not what Sasha was expecting. “You what?”

“He’s _real_ cute,” Tim answers as clear as day, seemingly unaware of how much he should not be saying this. “Don’t you think?”

Sasha laughs, teasing but not malicious. “Sure,” she says sardonically, “if you’re into Moishe Oofnik.”

That makes Tim open his eyes, turn to look up at her face with a crease between his brows. “Ouch, Sash. Deep cut, there.”

Sasha snorts at that, looking back at him incredulously. “I’m sorry, do you have _Rechov Sumsum_ related trauma that I’m unaware of?”

Shrugging, Tim turns his face into her stomach, hiding it for a moment before turning back. “No, just, y’know," he mumbles rather lamely. "S’not fair to compare the guy I’ve got a crush on to a puppet who gave me nightmares as a kid.”

“Oh, you’ve got a crush?" Sasha asks, raising her eyebrows. "A whole entire _crush?_ On _Jon?”_

“Half a crush,” Tim amends sheepishly.

“Mhm,” Sasha hums, sounding unconvinced, “and where’s the other half?”

Tim says nothing, but the silence speaks volumes as his cheeks flush dark and he turns his head away from Sasha’s penetrating gaze. It doesn’t take more than a moment’s hesitation for Sasha to catch on.

“You’ve got to be fucking joking,” she says. “Both of them? Both of them at the same time? Timothy J. Stoker, you are a disaster.”

“I know,” Tim agrees in a miserable groan. “I know, I know. I can’t make it stop, Sash, they’re just so – _fuck,_ y’know?”

“Not sure I do,” Sasha mutters under her breath, halfway between endeared and confused. 

A long, shaking sigh escapes Tim as he drags his fingers down his cheeks, looking for all the world like a mid-breakdown Hamlet, desperate and hopeless and far more dramatic than the situation calls for. “Martin’s just – he’s so sweet, he’s like a big teddy bear an’ I wanna just, like, fucking die in his arms.” He stops for a moment to imagine it, almost gets lost in his daydreaming, comes back to himself only when Sasha clears her throat.

“Like, he’s so nice an’ timid an’ shy,” Tim continues explaining, “but I saw him lift a whole fucking filing cabinet once just so he could get this spider that was hiding out under it an’ then he took the spider outside an’ then he moved the cabinet _back_ like it was nothing.”

Sasha opens her mouth to say something, but Tim cuts her off before she can get a word in. “An’ I checked the cabinet, it was full, like – _stuffed_ full. Paper’s heavy.”

“I know that,” Sasha replies coolly. “So that’s it? You’re a goner for someone who’s kind and strong?”

“Yeah,” Tim breathes, all dreamy and airy. “Just like Raleigh Becket. Sex in a soft knitted wrapper.”

“Then explain Jon,” Sasha challenges him.

Tim starts slightly at the words, looks up at Sasha with betrayal written on his face. “He’s… hot,” he tries, then squeezes his eyes shut against the embarrassment. “I mean, he’s just. He’s wound so fucking tight, y’know? An’ I wanna… unwind him. Slowly.”

Sasha narrows her eyes and sticks out her tongue in a mockery of retching, coughs a few times for good measure before scolding him, “Okay, gross.”

“Not gross!" Tim objects, his voice going high and defensive. "Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

“Course I have,” Sasha answers easily. “That’s why I’m a lesbian now.”

At that, Tim sits bolt upright, narrowly avoiding a collision with Sasha’s chin, and turns to face her. “You’re what?”

Sasha’s cheeks are burning up with a furious blush, which only worsens the longer Tim stares at her. “Yeah, I, erm,” she stammers, averting her eyes. “I didn’t mean to tell you like that, it just slipped out.”

Brow furrowed, Tim looks down at where his hand is still entangled with hers. “Sasha, we had sex like, less than a month ago,” he says, slow and deliberate. “Did I turn you into a lesbian?”

“Jesus, no,” Sasha exclaims, punctuating the statement with a hearty smack on Tim’s arm. “No, I just – I mean, kind of the opposite, actually? Like, you were sort of my last holdout, I think.”

Tim furrows his brow deeply, chews on his lip. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… like, I’ve been calling myself bi for what, fifteen years now? And I’ve never really thought too hard about whether that was entirely accurate?" Sasha tilts her head to the side quizzically, trying through the fog of alcohol to figure out how to articulate her experience. 

"I know you can be bi with a preference for one gender, but I never stopped to consider _why_ I was pretty much exclusively dating women," she says slowly, dread filling her at the thought of the next part of her explanation and how Tim will react. "And then you and I – you know, and I didn’t… I mean, it was _good,_ you were amazing, you know that."

Tim gives her a cheeky little grin, quickly replaced again by the somber look of understanding he's been wearing as she talks about this. He puckers his lips just for a second in a little gesture of affection, then nods for her to continue.

"But I didn’t want to do it ever again," Sasha says, hesitant now, afraid to hurt his feelings, "and I told you that and you looked like a kicked puppy, and it made me really _think_ about it for a while. So I did some research and some introspection and I came to the conclusion that – well, it’s more complex than this, but the bottom line is if I couldn’t stomach the idea of being with _you,_ then the chances of any other man doing it for me are approximately zero.”

For a long moment, Tim just stares, uncomprehending, before Sasha gives in and elaborates in clearer terms. “Like, I always sort of thought that I wasn't dating men because I hadn't found the right one,” she says, looking down at her hands in embarrassment, “but… I mean, you're the _perfect_ man, and it was – jarring, for me to realize that that wasn’t enough.”

Tim takes a second to look very thoughtful, and then he smiles. “Hm. That’s really sweet, Sash. I’m glad you told me. You’re my best friend, you know, and I want you to – to feel like you can talk to me.”

“I know, Tim,” Sasha replies, returning his smile. “And I’m not worried about you like, falling in love with me or anything.”

“Because I’m such a respectful gentleman who honors your boundaries?” Tim asks, knocking his shoulder gently against Sasha's and smiling.

“Because you have shit taste," Sasha retorts bluntly, giving him a shit-eating grin in return. "Just fucking awful. You can't possibly be into me when you clearly have no standards at all. I mean… it's _Jon._ I swear, I always think you've hit rock bottom and you just keep digging deeper.”

Tim doesn’t rise to the insult, just looks distant and dreamlike for a minute, lost in his own little world. When he surfaces, he blurts out the result of whatever journey his train of thought has taken, which happens to be: “D’you think me and Jon and Martin could pilot a jaeger, like those triplets?”

“Jon hates Martin,” Sasha points out.

“Doesn’t mean they aren’t drift compatible. They’re very similar, those two. On the same wavelengths a lot of the time,” Tim says, injecting his tone with far more rationality than he’s actually capable of exercising at the moment. “I think Jon’s grumpy about Martin because he sees himself in him and he doesn’t like that.”

Sasha pretends to think about it, then shrugs and shakes her head. “I think he’s just a bit of a dick.”

That doesn’t deter Tim, of course. “Well, yeah,” he concedes, speaking as if it should be obvious that he’s already taken this into consideration, “but so are you. So am I. So is – okay, not Martin. But most people.”

That’s not really a path Sasha wants to go down with a drunk Tim, arguing the relative levels of dickishness of their friends, so she pauses to consider before changing the subject slightly. “Would you tell Jon and Martin about – everything? Would you be comfortable sharing that with them, so… intimately?”

Tim blinks several times, shakes his head as if to clear an etch-a-sketch. “I’d share anything with them intimately.”

Sasha smacks him rather hard on the arm. “Gross! We’re talking about your fucking _trauma,_ Timothy!”

“Okay, okay, fine,” Tim says hastily, holding his hand up to prevent another attack. He mulls over the question before answering, starting somber and letting a smile spread across his face as he speaks. “Yeah, I’d tell them. Especially if it meant we got to be in a giant fuckoff robot and save the world together.”

“That’s like, your ultimate fantasy, isn’t it?” Sasha laughs with him.

“You bet your ass.”

“Kinda kinky.”

Tim rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, scoffs as if explaining something simple to a child for the fourth time. “We wouldn’t be having sex _in_ the robot, Sash. That’s not safe.”

“Nor sane,” Sasha says with a sage nod of her head. “But absolutely consensual.”

Tim beams at her, clearly more amused by his own percolating response than by her actual words, but Sasha’s alright with that. “Of course. I’d put the moves on so hard, they wouldn’t even know what to do with all their consent,” Tim says, animated and earnest as he can possibly be while also being ridiculous as hell. “They’d just keep consenting over and over like – _Yes, yes, yes!_ – and I’d have to cut in like, _Sorry gentlemen, if you don’t stop consenting, we’ll never get to have sex._ And they’d be like _Oh dear, what a pickle! I sure would love to have sex!_ And I’d be like _You know I can help with that,_ and they'd be like –,"

Shaking her head, Sasha cuts him off before he can say anything stupider than he already has. “Holy shit, Tim, shut the fuck up.”

He snaps his jaw shut with an audible click of his teeth, takes a deep breath. His eyes go wide, slowly, and he finally looks at Sasha clearly. “Okay, but like, for real," he pleads, soft and sad. "I want them so _bad,_ what do I do? It’s a fucking mess.”

“First, I think you have to pick one,” Sasha says clinically, then rushes to clarify when she sees Tim's posture lock up at the prospect. “Not that you can’t be sleeping with them both at the same time, just that – the approach has to be different, depending on who you’re going for.”

“Wanna get Martin,” Tim mumbles with hardly a beat of hesitation.

“Right, then. There’s progress, making a choice, good for you,” Sasha soothes him, running an affectionate hand down his arm. “With Martin, your best bet is probably a boiling the frog type of thing, where he doesn’t even realize you’re flirting until he’s already well into it. If you go at it too strong, he’ll get scared and run away.”

Tim draws his brows together, looking at her like she’s insane. “What, like he’s a fucking – baby gazelle, or some shit? I think I’ll just ask him.”

Tentatively, warily, Sasha ventures to press for more, despite her ironclad certainty that she doesn't want to know more. “Ask him what?”

“Ask him to fuck me,” Tim answers with an exasperated sigh, rolling his eyes at the audacity of asking such a silly question.

“Yeah, don’t do that,” Sasha responds immediately, the words coming out rather more urgently than she would like. _“Please_ don’t do that.”

“Mm, yeah, that’s what I’m gonna do,” says Tim, obviously more to be a nuisance than anything else.

"You're a menace." Sasha gives him a light shove and he sways in his seat, a goofy grin on his face as he watches her stand and extend a hand to help him up. "Come on, let's get you to bed. Maybe some rest will reveal to you how monumentally stupid that idea is."

They walk to Tim's bedroom arm in arm, ostensibly for stability. Sasha makes sure he makes it fully into the bed and under the covers, then goes to grab him a glass of water. He's already passed out by the time she returns, and she smiles fondly before climbing in next to him, leaving a few inches of space between their bodies but still slinging an arm over Tim's shoulder. Her last thoughts before she falls asleep are of the massive hangover Tim will inevitably have in the morning and the greasy breakfast she plans to make him pay for.


End file.
